By Any Other Name
by twopenny
Summary: Working title; possible option 'Bread and Butter.' Set pre-Show.
1. Prologue

_[_**NOTE:**_ I only watched the last episode of Monk after this was written, so I know Monk wasn't at home at the same time as his wife was in the parking lot, but I kind of like it as it is, so consider this non-canon or whatever and forgive me. :) In case you're wondering, the other details I got from online research, and all the rest is just speculation and made-up stuff._

_Also, since I'm new to this, I'm not sure if I'll be able to change the name later or exactly how this works... we'll see.]_

**

* * *

Title:** By Any Other Name [working title; might also be referred to as Bread and Butter]**  
Genre(s):** Hurt/Comfort/Romance**  
Rating:** T, for some coarse language. Possible mature themes in later chapters; as of yet undecided.**  
Summary:** Working title. First publication; I have yet to get the hang of this, so this is kind of a test.

**

* * *

Prologue**

December 14, 1997. He'd had a lot of time – two years, a week, four days – to think since then. He still remembered exactly where he was, what he was doing; when he closed his eyes he saw it, he felt it, and he wondered _how could he not have known. _He should have known. It could have been different_._

_._

_"Hello? Is someone there?"  
_

He'd just finished centering the Christmas tree - fake, of course, so as not to shed - in the living room.

_Footsteps - loud, so many echoes that she couldn't tell where they were from.  
_

Now he was putting up the ornaments. The wise men, and the infant Jesus - she loved that one.

_Was that - ? a black silhouette, hidden by the cars...  
_

The glass Christmas balls they'd painted over together.

_Rising in her throat is fearpanicrun. Don't let him catch me don't let him catch me don't let him catch me.  
_

Square photo booth prints, twenty-nine cents each. Making funny faces, smiling, kissing.

_Fumbling with the door, slamming it shut. Please don't let him catch me please please please._

Some rose-scented candles, a 1984 Allacco Cabernet - her favorite wine.

_Keys keys where are the damn keys hurry hurry, jamming them into the ignition – _

Turning on a Willie Nelson song, closing the blinds.

_- light and sound and so much pain._

He raised his phone to call her. _'Leave a message after the beep...'_

_Noise, like crying. Was it her or the ambulance sirens? Too late, too late..._

"Come home early..."

_She heard his voice and felt no more pain.  
_

As he clicked the phone shut, there was a pang of - what? Fear? Loss? Love?

_A hand - she grasped at it. Where had the air gone? _

By the time he got there she was goinggoinggone.

_"Bread and butter..."_

He tried to follow. She was running and he was, too, and he reached for her hand but they pulled him away and why did they pull him away and it was _too late._

_Bread and butter, Adrian..._

_._

_._

_.  
_

Why didn't they let him go?


	2. Chapter One: Absence

_[This takes place before the actual show picks up, in December 1999. I don't know much about hospitals or psychiatrists/therapists, so there will more than likely be inaccuracies. Also, I have this really purdy picture for this chapter, pasted in the word document, only I have no idea what the link to it is. The hallway is narrow, extending slightly above halfway up the picture into the distance; the whole thing is blue/has a blue undertone; the edges, in shadow, are black, but white light fans out along the walls... it's shaped like this, the brackets being the edges of the picture, the parentheses the edges of the white light, the slashes the hallway. Except it looks prettier: [(/\)]. Ah, well._

_Should I make this two separate chapters? 'Cause the first ends on - if not an optimistic note, well, it's not as dark, whereas the whole thing ends a bit depressingly. However, the chapter title fits for both sections, I think, and it takes a long, long time for me to choose titles for anything._

_The bits in italics in the second section are I guess Monk's thoughts, though not in first person narrative. They may be confusing, and, yes, I am quite aware that there are/is [a] run-on sentence[s]. It's supposed to be that way. I'm the author here - show me a little respect, hey?]_

**

* * *

Chapter One:  
Absence**

She re-read the print version of the email notification. Patient: Monk, Adrian. Located room 216. Attempted suicide by drug overdose. An obsessive-compulsive to boot, with a list of phobias longer than her arm. _Great. Another nutjob. _But she needed the money, and badly.

Her footsteps echoed in the narrow white corridor as she walked. He'd been the best detective in the SFPD until the death of his wife two years ago. In all that time hadn't left the house for more than a few days, despite the urgings of all nine of his private nurses (all happily fired) and his psychiatrist – the man's only contact with the outside world.

She rounded the corner. _There – 216. _He'd been admitted a few days ago and had as of yet remained almost catatonic. _God knows why they stuck him with _me.

The nurse stopped before the door to look down at herself and examine her reflection in the plastic cover of her name tag. She'd heard about how particular he was from - what was his name - that police captain. Stottlemeyer? Yeah. She re-did her frizzy bun and patted down a few wayward wrinkles in her uniform before walking in.

She closed the door behind her and went to the bed. He lay there quietly, eyes closed - sleeping? resting? She couldn't tell. His breathing was erratic, inconsistent; at times he seemed to be almost hyperventilating, at others not breathing at all. How old was he? He seemed - vulnerable, almost childlike, his expression holding so much pain and terror and _innocence_ that she felt her own heart wrench, but his face was lined and there were bags under his eyes and shadows on his face that spoke of ages of suffering. An intravenous tube was hooked up beside him.

On some strange whim she reached out and touched his forehead, only to draw away again quickly – God, he was burning! He whimpered, and his eyes opened suddenly. His brown irises were empty, black holes, pulling her in - empty but also overflowing with nothing she could understand. He was facing her, but through the blackness she could not see herself in his eyes - they showed a glimpse of once-was and never-will-be and a world whose boundaries she had not known existed. Then his eyes closed and she was spared from falling in.

"Trudy," he moaned. She jerked back involuntarily. In his voice, in his face, beneath the shuttered lids - abject loss, agony, _I will never understand _- she thought of her son, when he woke from a nightmare, sweat on his brow, at first not even recognizing her, the boy who did not cry when his mother screamed and raged who now wept on her shoulder -

"Adrian Monk?" she asked tentatively. Again the man's eyes opened, closed; now they were the eyes of man but not of the living. He sighed, and the light sparked on his cheek, highlighting a single tear. _He's hurting. He's really hurting_.

_I swear I will do everything in my power to help this man._

"My name is Sharona Fleming, and I'll be your nurse until you get better."

_I will be there when you stumble and I will pick you up, until the day you stand by yourself and the world is in your eyes_.

* * *

"Why do you think you did that, Adrian?"

Monk didn't look up; had he even heard? He leaned over to his right to wipe a smudge off of the window.

"Adrian? Why did you take those pills?"

Monk frowned and wiped the glass again with the corner of his sleeve.

"Adrian, I'm talking to you. What were you thinking? Were you afraid of something?"

He continued to swab in a circular motion. Kroger wasn't sure if he was listening or not, and was just about to speak again when Monk replied.

"I just - wanted - to _sleep_," he mumbled. His arm stilled, eyes focused on the floor. "I - I couldn't _sleep_."

"Why did you take so many pills?"

"I couldn't _sleep_," Monk repeated. "I just – I couldn't" – he broke himself off and resumed cleaning.

"Were you thinking of Trudy?"

Monk's hand slipped and he froze.

"Adrian?"

_"__Bread and butter, Adrian," every time they had to let go. But she always came back. This time – they wouldn't let him return to her. So many hands, holding him, choking him, pulling him further from what he wanted most. He'd lost sight of her but then there she was again and he kept running but she didn't get any nearer and she cried out to him but he couldn't hear her and all he thought was just a little more time, Trudy, just a little more time, just wait for me. Come home early, Trudy. Bread and butter. Bread and butter. Wait a little longer. Just a little more time...  
_

"Adrian? What's on the window?"

Monk let his arm fall away from the glass, and he stared at the smudge that was invisible to all but him. "I can't – see," he whispered, and Dr. Kroger saw his own face as reflected in a shop window so many years ago _God where did that come from,_ a little-boy face that was lost and far from home.

"What can't you see, Adrian?"

_Then suddenly so many voices and so many hands and they pulled him away, so far away, and everywhere he looked she _was not there_._

"I want to go home."

"Adrian"

"Where – where – I can't find – she isn't – "

"Adrian, are you alright?"

"I just – I just want – to go _home_."

* * *

When Sharona came in to bring him back he was sobbing, but there was no sound.


	3. Chapter Two: her eyes, blue

_[Same ignorance of hospital procedure. Same made-up stuff that may be completely contradictory to what they say in the show. Same somewhat OOC-ness. Same apologetic author writing. Also note that below it says 'her eyes - blue,' since that's a direct quote from the chapter, but in the chapter title to the above-ish right, I think, it says 'her eyes, blue.' That's because the thingymabobber won't allow hyphens in the chapter title and that one, with a single comma, is the best-looking option. I doubt anyone really cares, but... yeah..._

_The picture... wish I could put it up here somehow. Not as fitting as the other one but still. It's a two-shot, from the side, with Adrian sitting up, not straight, but sort of tired-looking, I guess in bed. One hand his raised half-heartedly, as if in protest or reaching for something. His face is shadowed. Leaning above/in front of him, one hand on his shoulder, is Sharona; the light falls mostly on her bare arm, her face, and her hair, making them look sort of golden and bright; a black purse is slung over her her right shoulder (we're viewing them from the left). Her mouth is open, like she's saying something to him... :( Whyyyyy! lol._

_Also: "... she was not his God..." I don't know what Adrian's religion is. He doesn't seem particularly religious in the show and I doubt that, going with what I've written so far, he's done so well by leaning on God. But if I add more, like "... she was not the God who had abandoned him,..." or something to that effect (affect? meh) then I don't think it sounds so good. Just to let you know.]_

**

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Chapter Two:  
her eyes - blue,**

"Adrian?"

The world around him was white and blurred. He groaned, shut his eyes again.

"Adrian, are you awake? Do you know where you are right now?"

Damn it. They never left him alone. Against his will the sounds settled; he felt the tube in his arm and the crisp sheets around him and the emptiness beside him that _was not Trudy_. Yes, damn them he knew where he was.

"Can you see me?"

He rubbed his eyes. It took a moment for the image to focus: A petite, curly-haired blonde, slim, in a nurse's uniform. _Trudy's hair was blonde, too, but lighter, like sunlight. And so soft... _He found the heart-shaped face too close for comfort, and rolled over so he wouldn't have to look into her eyes - blue, and offering something he could not accept. What was her name again? Cheryl... Sherry...

"Adrian? Do you remember me? I'm Sharona Fleming, your nurse."

Oh. Her. Why did they always ask so many questions? He wasn't stupid. _Not even in the headlines. Best detective in the force in the state in the whole goddamn world for all they knew, until..._

"What is it?" he asked. His voice was low, scratchy from a long time without use.

"Today's the day you get to leave, Adrian. You're okay now."

"Okay?" He felt like _shit_, and that was not an image he was comfortable with (had he ever said that word before? Had he said it just now? Or was it in his head, was it all in his head, and when he woke up would the bed next to him be warm and when he rolled over would Trudy be there?). He felt beaten and empty and like something inside him had been ripped out and he could not find it, damn him being the best detective San Francisco had to offer.

"Yes, Adrian. I'm going to help you up now."

She pressed a button so the bed juddered up to a 45 degree angle. One hand on his arm, the other lifting his back. He pushed her hands aside, sat at the edge of the bed, took a breath, pushed off.

He took a step forward and almost fell. Again, she reached for him. Again, he pushed her away.

He took another step, and this time she left him alone. Trudy was gone. No one could touch him. He was invincible.

.

The ornament shattered, painted glass shards arcing from the carpet. _Trudy bought that carpet._ The nurse jumped back; there were cuts speckled above her ankles.

"I'm sorry, Adrian." Already she was kneeling, picking up the fragments. Her tone light, soothing, as though nothing had happened. "It just slipped from my fingers. Just give me a minute and the I'll clean it up. I mean, I don't know what's gotten into me..."

He shoved her. She landed heavily on her side; he heard the breath go out of her, saw the corners of her eyes tighten in a wince she did not make. She didn't say anything. Just brushed herself off and stood. "I do. I know exactly why you dropped it." Hands shaking, squinting - who had opened the damn curtains? It was so bright... - he brought together two of the larger pieces. They formed the top part of a heart.

"I was just putting it away... you have to move on sometime, you know. The Christmas tree's been there forever."

"I called you a bitch."

She said nothing. Why wasn't she fighting back? Did he seem so weak, so pitiable? Anger bubbled up in him. _Good. Good. Anger is good. Anger takes over everything so you cannot remember cannot feel don't have the time to forget that no matter how hard you look she will not be there.__  
_

"I said no wonder it didn't work with your ex-husband."

"Adrian..."

"I told you to get out of my house."

"Adrian, look" –

"I said get_ out!_"

He banged his fist on the floor. She gasped. He lifted his hand slowly, brought it before his eyes, looked impassively. There was blood, but the pain - where was it? He had felt no real pain since that day, so many years ago, hundreds and hundreds of years ago, the day he had died.

"Oh, Adrian" - she knelt beside him; already she was pressing something to the cuts, asking if he had a first-aid kit; already she had forgiven him, when she had _no right _to do so because who did she think she was, she was not his God, she was not the woman he allowed to die - "Adrian" –

"Don't touch me! And don't call me Adrian!" He tried to put authority in his voice but it came out like a child's cry; he tried to push her again, but this time she was ready and he fell against her, into her lap, breathing hard. Instinctively she hugged him, rocking back and forth, like she was comforting a man-turned-boy, and in that instant though he tried to cling to it the anger fled and he was left empty again. Gradually he became aware of the sound of someone crying. Didn't they hear how loud they were, how ugly and pathetic and _desperate _they sounded? It wasn't the woman; she was murmuring softly into his hair. It was only when he tried to speak that he realized - he was the one weeping.

"Trudy..." His voice wavered, the whimper going out into the air, probing tentatively for an openness to curl up and hide in. It found one.

"Shh, shh, I know, I know." Someone was stroking the curls from his forehead, patting his back. _Trudy used to do that. _He eased into the steady rhythm of it, breathed in the scent of woman, heard the beat of her heart and his own. He had not known he had a heart, had not felt it until today.

"Only Trudy... can touch me... Trudy... she called me 'Adrian'..." He was crying again.

"I know, Adrian... I know..."

"Trudy... she loved me..."

The rhythm didn't cease, didn't go away. It was warm, so warm.

"I loved her..."

"Shh, Adrian... It's okay..."

Even after he'd stopped crying and felt himself slipping into sleep, he did not move from her lap.

_"It's okay now, Adrian... everything's gonna be alright..."_

.

He woke up in bed, the blanket tucked under his chin, comfortable and at ease. There was something different about this morning. There was still the ache in his chest and the emptiness under the covers to his left, but there was also something else there, something he could not pin down long enough to understand.

Someone hummed a few off-key notes. "Good morning, Adrian. How does breakfast sound?" He didn't have to open his eyes to know who it was, but he did anyway, just to see her face and look into her eyes - blue, holding something that he knew was mirrored in his own. She was smiling, and when he raised his hands to his lips he realized he was smiling too, and suddenly the feeling had a name.

"Sharona."


	4. Chapter Three: Coffee

_[A note: Adrian was born Oct. something, 1959, so in the beginning-ish of 2000 (just as a note, the last chapters were set at the very end of 1999) he'd be 40. Sharona was apparently 18 when she had Benjy, and Benjy is eleven years old in 2002, so that's how I calculated all their ages. Probably not exact, but close enough._

_In the previous chapter, Monk wasn't exactly falling in love with Sharona, and he's not falling in love with Benjy in this chapter. I don't write about pedophiles or homosexuals because I'm afraid that somehow, one day, my mom will discover my stories here. :P Well, actually, he is falling in love with them, with this two-person family, but not in a 'will-you-marry-me' romantic way. And he's not exactly seeing them as his family, either - Benjy is not his son, but a reminder of what-could-have-been, and a decent kid. It's hard to explain but it makes sense to me, lol. My last half-assed attempt... It's like, suddenly he wants to protect them, to be with them, to know them, and maybe after all this if they accept each other he will love them like in the romantic way (towards Sharona, dur; like a dad to Benjy). And still they won't be replacing Trudy. It's like how Natalie, in the show, isn't really replacing Sharona. She took the position and made it her own. So I guess what I'm trying to say is sorta that, if Monk and Sharona did get together, she is not his Trudy. She is still Sharona and always will be. They will walk without treading on the toes of ghosts; their own path, into that lovely cowboy sunset. Yeah. ...  
_

_And again, there was another nice pic for this, too. Not as - I dunno the word for it... like the hospital hallway picture looked sort of haunting and cool, and the second one was sort of symbolic-but-not... whatever, this one just has a different feel. Not as important or whatever. Just a pic of coffee. A nice picture of coffee, if I may say so myself: side view of a white cup and plate, warm golden-brown background, steam curling to form a heart. I put it in HTML and the pic appeared, but when I saved the changes on the document manager thing it disappeared._

_As you might have noticed, Adrian has improved a lot since the last chapter. It wasn't an overnight thing, but still, it's good - no, _great -_ progress for only a few months. Just for the sake of the story, 'cause otherwise it'd probably have taken longer. I wanted it to start late enough after Trudy's death because yeah and early enough so I could have my way with these characters and forge a background for them before the show.]_

**

* * *

Chapter Three:  
Coffee**

"Adrian, this is my son, Benjamin. Benjy, remember that friend of mine? - This is Mr. Adrian Monk, a very great detective."

She beamed at them, and there was something in her eyes that dared them not to at least _pretend _to smile.

They smiled.

"Nice to meet you, Benjy. Benjamin. Benjy." Monk leaned over the coffee table and shook the boy's hand. Settling back, he muttered, "Sharona? Wipe?" She beamed even harder and he awkwardly closed his waiting palm, settling for scrubbing it furiously on his pants.

"I think he's too old for you, Mom," the boy said, looking straight at Monk. Beam. "Not that it matters."

"Would you like some coffee, Adrian?"

"No thanks, I" - beam - "Coffee sounds great."

They waited until she had reached the safe distance of the kitchen before appraising each other.

On one side of the table sat sixty-odd pounds of undersized nine-year-old boy with a brown bowl haircut. Similarly brown eyes were busy boring a hole into Adrian's skull.

On the other side was a man slightly above average height, though he seemed smaller - almost folded in on himself, shrinking from the various germy dangers of a Single Mother's Apartment and the World in general. He had black curly hair, probably the only willingly asymmetrical part of him, though he had done his best. He was avoiding eye contact with the boy and arranging some magazines and books on the table - first by title, then by author, then by size. Monk stopped to knead a thumb-sized spot in the middle of his forehead and was surprised to find that the boy's stares hadn't yet succeeded in making even a dent.

He cleared his throat, blinked a few dozen times, rolled his shoulders, cocked his head. Bravely, he said:

"So."

Monk bobbed his head absently, looking away and rubbing the back of his neck. "So. How old is your mother? Say, thirty...?"

"She's twenty-seven."

"Ah." Another shoulder-roll. He looked around the room uncomfortably to see if there were anything else he could sort out.

The boy kicked the table. Monk winced as a magazine shifted a few centimeters (2.6, by his calculations) from the top of the pile he'd made. "How old're you?"

"Me? Well, that's a bit of a personal question..."

Another stare.

"... but I'll make an exception for you." He peered into the kitchen; Sharona had spilled the coffee and was currently occupied with swearing (loudly) and wiping up the mess. "I'm... ffff... forty."

"Oh." Benjy broke eye contact for a moment, narrowing his eyes and staring somewhere above Monk's right shoulder, tongue poking out of the side of his mouth, sizing up the difference. "... That's... not so bad."

Silence. Doubtfully, almost a question: "Thanks."

"But you're still old."

"Uh-huh." He looked down and twiddled his thumbs. "Say, Benjy... um, why don't we, you know, me... and you... you and me... why don't we, uh, try to get along?"

More stares.

"Between you and me, I'm afraid your mom's facial muscles will tear from all that smiling, and if you keep up the staring you might go blind."

Adrian chuckled uncertainly. The boy gave a slight nod; almost imperceptibly his expression softened, and in that instant he looked so open, so beautiful, and even though his eyes weren't blue Monk saw in them something he felt in himself so strongly, so warmly, that he had to name it.

"Benjy..."

"Yeah?"

"Nothing. I just thought, you know... It's a nice name."

"... Thanks."

This time they smiled, both of them, real smiles. A wall was breached, and through the opening came the curl of steam and the smell of morning.

"Coffee, anyone?"


End file.
